In today’s Brickonomics lesson, you will learn the importance of knowing your LEGO.
Brickonomics
I can not stress this one enough; know your LEGO! If you want to get the most bang for your LEGO dollar, you need to know what sets are current, when sets were released, and what their MSRP is. I always go off the price on shop.lego.com for the official MSRP.
Knowledge is power.
Why is this important? Anytime I am in a store that sells LEGO, I walk through the aisle to check things out. I look for obvious sales; specifically sets on clearance.
I have found that clearance items, especially ones that were clearanced a while ago, are not always marked. I can only assume this occurs when an item was clearanced for a time, and then sold out. At some point after, someone returns that set, and it simply gets returned to the LEGO aisle.
This is why you need to know your LEGO. Do any sets appear out-of-place? Should that set be there? Seems like I haven’t seen it around in a while. When in doubt, scan it.
This is how I just scored a $139.99 Millenium Falcon for $69.99! Woo hoo!
Do you do this as well?
I am an Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL) and an active member of the Michigan LEGO User Group (MichLUG). I have loved LEGO for as long as I can remember. I am currently working on the following models:
– UCS Millenium Falcon
– Emmett’s Apartment Building
– Gringott’s Bank
I was at Wal-mart a few days ago and I found a Urak-Hai Army for 21.00! Compared to the fifty dollars Amazon is charging, I considered it a good deal and brought it home. Also, 30 polybags for .39 is just awesome!!
That is a good price for Uruk-Hai army! I haven’t seen that set at Walmart in months. What polyboags did you get for $.39??? That’s a FANTASTIC price!
Knowing the retail price helped me avoid paying too much. Walgreens had some battle packs on “clearance.” But since they mark their toys up so much, the clearance price was only about 10% off retail. Not a real sale.
I saw the Chima packs at Easter. I didn’t think to check them at the scanner since I already had a pack. Actually the Targets near me didn’t mark down the Batmobile polybag after Christmas.
Yeah, I have not seen those polybags marked down at Target in a while. Last time I did, I got 30+ for $.39!
Agreed! And scan! During Valentines, Target carries Lego polybags that they normally don’t have. They are marked down after the holiday as clearance and only get cheaper as time goes on if they are not purchased. Target made a mistake this year and forgot to changed the mark down price when they brought in those same poly bags for Easter. I scored on Chima and Friends sets for .37!!!!!
Awesome! Yes, for sure. When in doubt scan, scan, scan. And look at the shelf tags for prices that seem odd. I remember when Target got the City Corners sets in. I knew they should be $50+, but the shelf tag said something like $14.94. Sure enough, that’s what they were scanning for. I bought a bunch of them.